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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Teottry
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Commoner – An ordinary person without special abilities. Someone unspecified. However, the eccentric man standing behind me didn’t look ordinary at all.
“Watch closely. This is how you wield a Staff.”
The eccentric, calling himself a commoner, stretched out his long arm, picked up my fallen Staff, and then, truly enthusiastically, began thrashing a large dog as if it were a dog being beaten on the hottest day of summer – the image just popped into my head.
He poked, jabbed, swept, blocked, struck, pressed… He played with the Staff, hitting the dog in every conceivable way with the tip.
The surprising thing was that the ferocious dog couldn’t mount a proper counterattack, just whimpering and being toyed with like a monkey in the Buddha’s hand. It was almost as if the dog was offering itself up to be hit by the Staff.
The large dog rolled around trying to avoid the Staff, and at some point, losing track of its front and back, it wiggled its backside towards the Staff.
“I think this is enough of a lesson. It won’t bite anyone for a while now. Go home.”
Thwack!
“Whiiine!!”
The eccentric man smacked the dog’s backside hard with the Staff, and the dog, like a rabbit fleeing a tiger, ran away without looking back.
What…did I just see?
A large man chased away a dog with a Staff. Just looking at the situation, it wasn’t particularly strange. However, the Staff technique the man displayed was a jaw-dropping spectacle, the likes of which I had never seen in either my past or present life.
If violence could be sublimated into art, wouldn’t it look like the Staff technique used by the large man? It was that marvelous.
And from within me, the desire to learn that technique stirred. I’d have to walk with a Staff for the rest of my life anyway, crippled as I am, so wouldn’t it be good to learn such a marvelous Staff technique?
“Uh, sir, thank you for saving me. But where did you learn that strange Staff technique?”
“It’s not a strange Staff technique, it’s a martial art called the Dog Beating Staff Technique (打狗棒法). Do you want to learn it?”
Dog Beating Staff Technique (打狗棒法). Literally translated, it meant a method of beating dogs with a Staff. Thinking back to how the old man had just beaten the dog, it was a truly fitting name. There couldn’t be a more suitable name.
But naming it the Dog Beating Staff Technique made it seem like it wasn’t a very high-level martial art. Was it for self-defense? Would they teach it at a nearby martial arts school?
“Yes! I want to learn. Where can I go to learn it? Or did you perhaps create this Staff technique yourself, sir?”
“A school? Did I create it? Ha-hahahahahaha!”
The old man burst into laughter, shaking his large body as if something was hilarious. He gently stroked my head with his large hand.
Lost in the moment, I properly saw the old man’s face for the first time. He had a broad forehead, eyebrows long as calligraphy brushes, a blunt nose, and thick, pouty lips. Frankly, he was a really ugly old man.
However, perhaps because of a strange aura emanating from him, he didn’t give the impression of being ugly. It was strange.
“Seeing as you don’t know the Dog Beating Staff Technique, you must not be a child from a martial arts family. Alright. It’s fate that we’ve met like this, so I will teach you. But there’s a condition.”
“A condition?”
“Prepare a bundle of dried meat and offer it to me as a gesture of respect. That is the condition.”
Dried meat? Dried meat as in the dried meat I know? He wants dried meat, not money? It wasn’t difficult, but the condition was so easy that it was suspicious.
“It is customary for a student to offer ten pieces of dried meat tied together when asking a teacher for instruction.”
束脩之禮 (Soksu Jirye) – The ritual of the dried meat bundle. It refers to the gift offered when a student first meets a teacher. I had seen this phrase in the scriptures.
But it was just an empty formality, and usually, people accepted money instead. This was the first time I’d seen someone actually adhere to it.
“I am staying for a while in the abandoned house on the eastern outskirts of the village. If you wish to receive instruction, prepare the gift and come find me.”
The large old man, just as he had appeared suddenly, walked away and disappeared just as suddenly. He seemed to be walking normally, but with a light step, he vanished before my eyes.
I rubbed my eyes, staring at the spot where the old man had been. I even pinched my thigh to see if I was dreaming, but it wasn’t a dream.
I was dumbfounded, but I knew what had happened to me. Even I, someone who didn’t know much about martial arts stories, could understand.
This was a power-up event. A fateful encounter. A fateful encounter had come to me.
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After parting ways with the old man, things were chaotic. My mother, who had seen me rolling around everywhere, went into a frenzy and declared a house arrest.
My father was of the mindset that it was okay for boys to get hurt, so he would usually let me roam freely, but my mother was sensitive to my injuries and ailments.
Probably because she felt responsible for me being born with a limp leg. A matter she had absolutely no reason to feel responsible for.
As a son, I felt grateful for my mother’s care and kindness, but she was so foolishly kind that we weren’t very compatible.
It must have been because I was a twisted person at heart. I felt sorry for her, having given birth to me after all that pain. Where did the cute baby go, and how did this guy come out instead?
But feeling sorry was one thing, and learning the Dog Beating Staff Technique outside was another. I’ll live as I please now and be filial later when I grow up.
Normally, this would have been the time for a hearty lunch, some playtime, and then a nap. But I grabbed the bundle of dried meat Jang-sam had prepared for me and slipped out of the house without my parents knowing.
Limping, I slipped out through the back door and headed towards the abandoned house on the eastern outskirts of the village.
When I first learned that I was limp, I was quite despairing, but humans are creatures of adaptation, and I had now gotten the hang of walking with a Staff.
If I pushed myself, I could pick up a fair bit of speed. Well, even at my fastest, it was only about the speed of a normal person walking briskly.
The abandoned house on the eastern outskirts of the village. Even though it was abandoned, it used to belong to a wealthy man who, for some reason, had left it, so it was still a livable place.
Of course, that was only true if you went there in the morning. If you went at night, it was just a haunted house.
As I carefully walked inside, passing through the half-broken, dangling gate, the old man was there to greet me with a benevolent smile on his face.
“You really came. What would you have done if I were a bad person, coming to such a remote place alone?”
His tone was more like an adult teasing a child, joking, rather than a genuine threat, so I replied casually.
“You just seemed like a good person. Don’t expect logical reasoning from a kid this age.”
The old man laughed heartily at my words and sat cross-legged in front of me.
“Coming all this way means you truly want to learn martial arts, right? Bow deeply once and offer your gift as a gesture of respect from a student.”
I scratched my head as I recalled something I’d heard somewhere or read in the scriptures.
“Uh, isn’t it customary to bow nine times, not just once, in the Nine Bows Ritual (九拜之禮) when requesting to become a disciple?”
I asked about the Nine Bows Ritual not because I wanted to bow nine times, but because I was worried that this old man might try to play with words and teach me only as much as I bowed, since I only bowed once.
At my question, the old man, already acting like my master, instructed me in his characteristically benevolent yet firm voice.
“The Nine Bows Ritual isn’t about bowing nine times to the teacher. It’s three bows to the founder of the sect, three bows to the patriarch, and finally, three bows to the teacher.”
Oh~ I see. I hadn’t known that.
“Then, even if we omit the founder and patriarch, shouldn’t I still bow three times to you, Master? But why only once?”
“Your leg is injured, isn’t it? Just do it once, since it would be difficult.”
It was a perfectly valid reason, but somehow, it was so unexpected that I was taken aback and asked in a bewildered voice.
“Really? Is that okay? You emphasized propriety and even told me to prepare a bundle of dried meat, didn’t you?”
“Was it difficult to prepare the bundle of dried meat?”
“No? It wasn’t particularly difficult.”
“Then do you think it wouldn’t be difficult or painful to bow three times while limping on your injured leg?”
“Of course it would be difficult and painful.”
After a few exchanges, I realized what my master meant. As if he had also noticed, he finished his lesson in his characteristically benevolent and firm voice.
“That’s it. Observing propriety is important. However, propriety should not cause suffering.”
I could have nitpicked and argued if I wanted to, but I didn’t feel like it.
“Please tell me your name. As your disciple, I should know my master’s name, shouldn’t I?”
“As I said before, I am not someone worth revealing my name. Just think of me as a passing commoner.”
Ah~ I understand. Raising an eyebrow, I looked at the master’s ugly face for a moment, then stood up straight and put down my Staff.
As the support that held up my body disappeared, my disabled right leg trembled madly, upsetting my balance.
What was I doing? My right leg sent frantic signals, urging me to grab onto something immediately, or just fall to the ground.
Gritting my teeth, sweating, I ignored my body’s signals. I stretched out my good left leg first and knelt down.
Thud!
In the process, I lost strength in my right leg and ended up slamming my knee onto the ground. In any case, I had managed to get into a rough kneeling position.
I brought my hands together in front of me and bowed, showing my master the respect due from a disciple.
“Sima Mancheon (司馬瞞天) requests instruction from a passing commoner.”
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Imagine that you kneel with one lag dude😓I felt sad for him.
